alt Hacker NewsI have noticed that the self-directed part has been deemphasized in favor of selling to adults (with more money than they'd spend on plastic toys for kids), but you can still totally buy the "Classic brick sets" and "Creativity" toys, or just bulk bricks by the pound.
In those bulk sets, there are now way more colors than just the primary and secondary colors that original sets came in, way more flat tiles and wedges with stickers or screen-printed imagery from the branded product lines, but kids don't seem to mind.
My 9yo has a bunch of bulk bricks as well as planned sets - Minecraft in particular - and when he gets a new set, he builds it to the instructions, brings it out to the living room to show off his creation, and then before he's walked back to his room he's in the process of adding new stuff or taking it apart to integrate into the rest of the jumble of bricks. I think there are only two builds (both from this Christmas) that are currently intact, and they probably won't last long...
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Not sure if they do this, but I'd actually really like if they included instructions for things you can make with just the brick sets - just to help you get started or to come back to later.
fx with a box of 1000 bricks, instructions for 2 or 3 things that can all be made from the bricks in the box (maybe not all at once)
> I have noticed that the self-directed part has been deemphasized in favor of selling to adults (with more money than they'd spend on plastic toys for kids),
LEGO has over 500 sets available every year. It's a crazy number, coming from someone who grew up reading every LEGO catalog I could find.
You're probably only seeing those few flagship sets because they get advertised and shared on social media. There are literally hundreds of small sets out there now.
For the adults here, the number of LEGO sets available to us as kids was a fraction of what's available today. The number of sets out there is staggering.
On the plus side, there are so many sets that it's now easier to find sales. As a kid saving up money it felt like sales never happened. Now I grab small sets on sale for 30-40% off all the time to keep as easy gifts or for my own kids.